The quality of the teacher workforce in the United States is of considerable concern to education stakeholders and policymakers. Numerous studies show that student academic success depends in no small part on access to high-quality teachers. Many pundits point to the fact that in the United States, teachers tend not to be drawn from the top of the…

More than 40 states plan to assess student performance with new tests tied to the Common Core State Standards. In summer 2013, results from Common Core-aligned tests in New York showed a steep decline in outcomes. Common Core advocates hailed the scores as an honest accounting of school and student performance, while others worried that they…

This article presents a debate over the Common Core State Standards Initiative as it has rocketed to the forefront of education policy discussions around the country. The author contends that there is value in having clear cross state standards that will clarify the new online and blended learning that the growing use of technology has provided…

In January, 2014, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education (ED) issued a joint "Dear Colleague Letter" to K-12 schools. The topic discussed in their joint letter is whether administrators are punishing minority children more harshly than white children for…

A growing body of research says there is a link between afterschool activities and graduating from high school, going to college, and becoming a responsible citizen. Temple University psychologist Laurence Steinberg, whose book, "You and Your Adolescent: The Essential Guide for Ages 10-25," discusses afterschool activities. He suggested two more…

Washington is at a crossroads on K-12 education policy. Policymakers can (1) continue down the path of top-down accountability; (2) devolve power to states and districts, thereby returning to the status quo of the mid-1990s; or (3) rethink the fundamentals, do something different, and empower parental choice. This article discusses how the federal…

In all the acrimonious discussion surrounding No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), surprisingly little attention has been given to the actual impact of that legislation and other accountability systems on student performance. Now a reputable body, a committee set up by the National Research Council (NRC), the research arm of the National…

President Obama sparked much debate in Washington with his plan to grant states waivers from provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), conditional on their willingness to embrace certain reform proposals sketched out in the administration's March 2010 proposal, "A Blueprint for Reform: The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary…

Maintaining America's productivity as a nation depends importantly on developing a highly qualified cadre of scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and other professionals. To realize that objective requires a system of schooling that produces students with advanced math and science skills. To see how well schools in the United States do at…

For a decade, at least since the passage of No Child Left Behind, the nation's foremost education goal has been to erase achievement "gaps" in which African American, Latino, and low-income students dramatically lag behind their peers. This emphasis has enjoyed broad support through the Bush and Obama administrations, and from major funders, but…

Americans thrive on competition. But American schools have been suspicious of competition for generations, and are generally horrified by the idea that success should be accompanied by a reward like a title, a trophy, or a cash prize. In this article, the author stresses that the self-esteem movement in the 1990s made many educators squeamish…

In this article, the authors tackle the question of whether the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act has affected student achievement since its enactment in 2002. They present new research that takes on the challenge of distinguishing the law's effects from the myriad other factors at work over the past eight years. The results suggest that its…

When the Cleveland, Ohio, school board had to make radical cuts in its budget last spring, it was forced to eliminate 540 teaching jobs. There wasn't a whole lot of mystery about "which" teachers among Cleveland's 3,500-member teaching force would be the ones to lose their jobs. The state's hard-and-fast seniority rule--last hired, first…

If one relies on newspaper headlines for education funding information, one might conclude that America's schools suffer from a perpetual fiscal crisis, every year perched precariously on the brink of financial ruin, never knowing whether there will be sufficient funding to continue operating. Budgetary shortfalls, school district bankruptcies,…

For as long as there have been struggling schools in America's cities, there have been efforts to turn them around. But overall, school turnaround efforts have consistently fallen far short of hopes and expectations. Quite simply, turnarounds are not a scalable strategy for fixing America's troubled urban school systems. Fortunately, findings from…